I finished my six month security assignment and the school year has ended which gives me a break from the reading classes I do for several grades. Some of my other activities have obtained a balance and now I can focus once again on my writings. For a while it felt as if I were juggling bowling balls with my time. There are personal rewards though, such as accomplishing a year’s worth of security work in six months, and having school children tell me how much I will be missed by them. But I’m glad to have the break. I needed it!
First, let me say that everyone should go thank a teacher for all they do in our schools. For two years I’ve gone every Tuesday to four different classrooms of two schools in the kindergarten, first and second grades, to work with kids and read books. From what I have witnessed, teachers do not get paid enough for all they do for their students – especially for the long hours they undergo to accomplish their jobs! When the kids are dismissed at the end of the day, the majority of the teachers still have three, four or more hours of paperwork and lesson plans. You may think you know what a teacher does, but unless you actually spend time with them on a consistent basis – you know nothing. Athletes get ridiculously high salaries while teachers, the very ones who educate our children, get ridiculously low salaries.
During my six-month absence from writing and social media networks, I thought about past challenges and those that will confront me again:
(1) Social media is good, but it needs to be kept in check if you are a serious writer. So, I’m going to attempt to establish a few hours for email, business correspondence, and networking, and dedicate the majority of the day to writing. At least I’ll start out that way…
(2) Instead of marketing and promoting my novels in a shotgun spraying manner, I need to develop a better plan. The last thing I want to become is one of those authors that bombard every social media arena with the same postings you silently dislike and pay little attention to. I’m sorry, but when I open my email and it’s filled with ten Facebook notices from the same name, I start deleting them.
(3) I realized once again that authors, especially indie-authors, are a generous, friendly, and supportive community by nature. Authors want to succeed, but they want other authors to succeed as well. Several of my indie friends knew I was working long hours each day and had little opportunity for my novels, much less to promote my works on the social networks. What did they do? They posted information about my novels, about me, and were always supportive. They said, “Don’t worry…just hurry back to the writing world!” Now that is true friendship, especially since I have never met 99% of those authors in person.
There are so many I wish to thank, and I know I will miss someone’s name, but here are a few of those fine indie-authors: Belinda Witzenhausen, Micheal Rivers, Harvey Burgess, Patti Roberts, Bonnie B. Latino, and Vonda Norwood. (Follow the link of Belinda’s name to her site and the interview she recently did on me.)
Another fine author I want to note is Nicholas Guild. I enjoy his writings, read them and try to learn from his craftsmanship, and in a sense, consider him a mentor. Then, through a blog I wrote about him last year, we have become good friends. Although he is a NY Times Best-Selling Author and internationally published, he’s also a supporter of indie-authors. His first horror/ghost novel THE MOONLIGHT was only released as an ebook. Nicholas has truly been an encouraging factor for me when I grew quite weary these last six months.
In a few weeks I will be attending the 2013 Texas Gang Investigators Conference in Houston, Texas. I’m honored to be asked to attend for the second year in a row and sign my novels. The conference is strictly for law enforcement related persons. You can find the story I wrote about these great men and women on my site… just follow the link – T.G.I.A.
I wish everyone the best and by end of summer hope to release my next novel, AMAZON MOON.
Glenn
